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15+ Cheap CDN Alternatives to Akamai Content Delivery Network

Finding a cheap cdn that can perform well may not be easy. Cheapest cdn options are open source and free, however they may not perform as per your needs, therefore you may need to chose wisely. Small businesses need affordable CDN solutions.

A content delivery network system is a collection of internet servers which serves about one third of the most visited websites. The system improves speed of access for download-able data, applications, queries, web objects and media streams, as it increases the access bandwidth and reduces latency.

It contains copies of data located at different nodes of the selected servers, providing service from servers which are located geographically close to the user, hence saving access time. Furthermore, this unique method assists in reducing load on web application and improves scalability. There are several types of Content Deliver Networks which includes third party CDN providers too.

Akamai is one of the most famous CDNs which support many of the Fortune 50 sites. Akamai delivers between 15-30% of all Web traffic. Though Akamai is the leader, if your work is restricted to the US, there is no need to spend on Akamai as you can go for other efficient but cheap alternatives, such as the ones mentioned in this list.

CoralCDN is a free CDN and the source code is available through GNU GPL. CoralCDN locates cached objects and helps to improve the availability of data. It is built on key indexing infrastructure which is called Coral. The drawback of Coral is that it can be blocked by a few antivirus software and web filtering packages (Websense and Open DNS.)

CDN77.com is a customer oriented CDN provider focusing on software, video and games delivery. Running cutting-edge technology such as HTTP/2, Brotli and offering free TLS certificate, transparent prices and Pay-As-You-Go plans with no commitments and free trial.

Amazon CloudFront provides cloud computing, database and storage. Amazon costs $0.075 per 10,000 HTTP requests and $0.0100 per 10,000 HTTPS requests in the US. The rates vary with region. Users can also go for reserved capacity pricing, if the usage level is lower than 10 TB per month in one region.

CacheFly is a reliable CDN which ranked at #1 in a website comparison of 24 CDNs for efficiency by ‘Cloudclimate.com’. The custom plan of CacheFly costs $0.03 / GB and a risk free trial is provided for 30 days. The minimum package is available at $99 / month.

Max CDN provides easy uploading, GZip compression (unlike Cloudfront), is compatible with shared hosts, provides caching of database / pages / posts / RSS and is easy to install as well. It is priced at 2.9 cents for a GB and it takes $39.95 annually for 1000GB. Its major drawback is that it does not have sufficient nodes in Asia.

ProCDN provides Grid Service and has a dedicated server. It is provides fast access to data and is one of the most affordable providers. It is in fact the first company authorized to host iASP for Macromedia’s Flash Communication Server and Linux. ProCDN’s rate is $20 per month for 200 GB data transfer.

BitGravity was established in 2006 and has nodes across North America and Europe. It provides delivery of software, audio, video and advertisements. It is one of the first CDNs which allowed interactive broadcasting. The CMS only package is priced at $179 / month.

CDNetworks is full service CDN which provides video streaming, image caching and large volume downloads. It has more than 80 POPs in 52 geographical regions and it has one of the best transfer performances. It is priced at $0.50 per GB.

KeyCDN is a CDN based out of Switzerland. It is different from other providers in that they have the lowest price globally at $0.04/GB, over 20 POPs, free origin shield, free secure token, free SSL, and much more. They are also one of the 1st CDN's to launch HTTP/2 support. They focus on making the barrier to entry minimal with an easy pay-as-you-go program. KeyCDN also has a very strong tie to the WordPress community as they currently have three performance plugins available.

SoftLayer provides software for streaming, organizing and storing website content. It provides 250GB bandwidth for $45.00 and pay as you go starts at ($0.20 per/GB). It is recommended for good service and reliability.

Level 3 has comprehensive CDN service which allows caching, streaming, delivering content, secure delivery as well as storage.
There are a number of other popular CDNs, besides the ones mentioned in above list. Do let us know in comments section if you have used some other CDNs which you were impressed with.